


The Head Of Goliath

by cycnus39



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF Mycroft, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Mycroft Holmes, Poor Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cycnus39/pseuds/cycnus39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Choice and consequence, assets and liabilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Head Of Goliath

Carpet.

He was lying facedown on carpet.

Axminster...one hundred percent wool.

He supposed they called the colour some variant of terracotta even as he knew he should have been alarmed. The terracotta was, after all, clashing terribly with his navy suit.

Phone.

His mobile phone was sixteen inches away, just below eye level.

It was ringing.

Deciding it must have slipped out of his jacket pocket as he fell, he reached out and turned it screen up. He wasn't thinking anything at all as he pressed the answer button.

"Mycroft?" a voice blurted in surprise.

It was John Watson.

"Finally!" Sherlock snapped in the background and then Sherlock was on the phone demanding, "Where are you? They ransacked the flat looking for you and when I tried to trace your phone, it traced me back."

Well, it wasn't 2005 anymore.

"Mycroft? Why aren't you saying anything?"

Fine. He was going to lift his head and clearly tell Sherlock he was fine. Somehow he ended up saying half into the carpet, "I'm on the floor."

"What floor? Where are you?"

"Not entirely sure."

"Opioid?"

"Almost assuredly."

"Serotonin toxicity?"

"Mild. Headache and terracotta."

"Terracotta? You mean tachycardia."

"That too."

"I'm adding mental confusion and raising your intoxication level to moderate. Where are you?"

"I'm fine."

"If you were fine, Mycroft, we wouldn't be having this conversation. What's the last thing you remember?"

Ellery. The last thing he could clearly recall was Ellery looking absolutely sublime in subtle blue houndstooth perfectly set off with the boldest gold tie. Telford was there as well, looking like a used car salesman in the most awful chalk stripe affair, and...yes, that was right, Forrester was there in the obligate charcoal pinstripe and navy tie. And there was a fourth. Prince of Wales check and foul pink tie...Calhoun. Lord, an American so offensively American the CIA used him as a torture device. No wonder he wanted to forget everyone but Ellery. Ellery was the only one worth remembering. Ellery was the only one who--

"Mycroft?"

"Dinner," he growled, a little irritated at being pulled away from a very lovely image of Ellery with slightly longer blond curls than usual.

"Where?"

Blue eyes. Ellery had the most--

"Mycroft!"

"Cheapside."

"Cheapside? Could you be more vague? Did someone actually drug you or did you just eat some nutmeg? You never could resist a custard tart."

Sherlock kept talking but he stopped listening, let the vivid memories of Ellery at the private viewing of the National Gallery's Caravaggio exhibit fill his senses.

It was a bitter February evening and he'd felt chilled all day, had drank too much Spanish Carignan at the wine reception to even feign interest in the exhibition. However, as soon as Ellery had begun speaking about the paintings, enthusing at length about the life and loves that had created them, he was captivated.

He'd let it happen. He'd followed Ellery around the relatively small exhibition space without a shred of resistance, had allowed Ellery to seduce him with words of light and darkness, intimacy and despair, in the privacy of their own shadows. Afterwards, as they had crossed Trafalgar Square on their way back to Horse Guards, Ellery had asked if he could persuade Sir John to move the November conference to Rome--

"Mycroft, look at me. Mycroft!"

He opened his eyes and Sherlock was there. It took him a moment to realise that it was Sherlock's left hand cupping the side of his face, Sherlock's right hand loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt collar.

"Stay focused on me," Sherlock told him even while leaning away to slip off his coat. "What's today's date? Tell me," Sherlock continued, but he was distracted by the weight of Sherlock's coat as Sherlock tucked it over him, so warm and familiar and yet unfamiliar. "Mycroft, answer me. What's today's date?"

Sherlock's left hand was on his face again and he suddenly remembered a particularly ignominious play date Mummy had arranged with another home-schooling family. Well, to say these children were schooled in any way was a gross exaggeration. The parents believed in 'natural learning', which apparently meant letting their progeny explore the world in any way they saw fit, up to and including being a five-year-old emergency scale mathematical equation and a ten-year-old apocalypse. He clearly recalled being sent upstairs to the playroom with Sherlock and opening the door to find the five-year-old eating a box of coloured chalk while the ten-year-old scooped tadpoles out of a fish tank and catapulted them out an open window.

Nothing. He didn't have a word for their would-be playmates, just looked silently down at Sherlock at the exact moment Sherlock blinked helplessly up at him. Then Sherlock's hand was slipping into his and he was wrapping his fingers around Sherlock's, closing the playroom door and leading Sherlock back down the stairs--

"Look at me, Mycroft. Think. What month is it?"

Both of Sherlock's hands were cupping his face now and Sherlock was so close he could count the raindrops trapped in the curls of Sherlock's hair.

November.

It was a terribly wet November in Rome. He remembered how the rain had streaked down the car windows on the way to the mortuary, remembered how the smell of damp wool had been engulfed by the stench of death and industrial disinfectant as he stepped into the autopsy room.

"Mycroft!"

When the mortuary attendant pulled back the sheet, there were droplets of rain still clinging to the curls of Ellery's hair. Even as his mind automatically deduced the trajectory, velocity and likely calibre of the bullet that had destroyed the upper right portion of Ellery's head, he watched as a raindrop lost its hold on the longest curl and splashed silently onto the metal table.

"No, no, no! Focus on me, Mycroft. On me!"

A drop of rain hit his cheek and Sherlock was there again, mere inches away, and he felt as if they were children again, as if Sherlock was that uncertain four-year-old trying to slip a hand into his again.

He didn't have a clear idea of where his left hand was, but his right hand was on his chest, so he brought it up from under Sherlock's coat, wrapped the fingers around Sherlock's left wrist.

"October," he forced himself to say even though his voice was hoarse and the words felt foreign to his mouth. "It's the fifth of October."

Sherlock's gaze narrowed and, for a moment, he thought Sherlock was going to berate him over some trivia, but Sherlock didn't even pull his wrist free, just turned and picked the phone up from where it had been kicked against the skirting board. "Who should you be calling?"

"No one," he answered, and Sherlock raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Of course he was lying. Forrester would have mobilised all six Delta teams by now and the Section Heads would be in uproar, but he didn't particularly care. Although Forrester had not been directly involved in the events that had led to Ellery's death and, ultimately, Telford's rise to the Committee, Forrester should have known. Had he been in Forrester's position nine years ago, he would have known.

"No one at all?" Sherlock challenged just as the phone's biometric protocol activated and Sherlock finally pulled his wrist free to investigate the lock screen with both hands.

"They'll work it out eventually," he murmured, and that was fact. The Gutter Lane apartment wasn't far from the Cheapside restaurant where he'd had dinner with Telford. Even though Telford's desperate plan to serve him up to Hebei had come as a surprise, he had put the intelligence to work six months ago, put Calhoun's people in place two weeks ago. Telford was beaten before realising the game had begun and now, with Telford at the tender mercies of the CIA, he was inclined to let Forrester wallow in his own inadequacies.

"Feeling a tad vindictive, brother dear?" Sherlock asked without looking up from his overly optimistic hacking attempt.

Rolling his eyes, he held out his left hand for the phone. "If you don't mind?"

"Why?"

"Because, Sherlock, if you keep playing with it, it will take your fingers off."

Sherlock gave him an arch look. "You said that exact same thing about your pinwheel calculators."

"And as a direct result you still have all your fingers, so if you'd be so kind?"

"Still have both my thumbs despite you threatening to bite them off after the Women's Institute fairy cake debacle," Sherlock muttered, surrendering the phone before glowering at the apartment door. "Where's John? He should have been back with the cyproheptadine three minutes ago."

"Thank you, but I think I'll pass on the tinnitus and hallucinations."

Sherlock looked vaguely insulted. "You're an adult, Mycroft. Cyproheptadine can't still possibly have those effects."

"And yet, alas, it does," he sighed, was weighing the merits of attempting to sit up when Sherlock abruptly changed the subject.

"Who's Ellery?"

He didn't even blink. "I'm sorry?"

"Ellery. You said it twice when I asked you the month."

He was taking a breath to prevaricate further when the memory of standing at the foot of Sir John's deathbed engulfed his senses. But this time he didn't let it sweep him away. This time he watched Sherlock, studied the way Sherlock's third shirt button moved in time with each of Sherlock's breaths as Sir John lectured him about choice and consequence, assets and liabilities, Sherlock and Ellery.

Unlike Forrester, Sir John had saw the whole game in 2005, knew Telford was jockeying for position, knew Ellery was in danger, and had done nothing. Liabilities. Ellery and Sherlock were liabilities and he was a fool to value them, a fool to care, a fool to even try to-- He didn't remember picking up the pillow, just remembered pressing it tightly over Sir John's face, remembered how weakly Sir John's hands had pulled at his jacket sleeves, pawed at his wrists. Then it was over and the cold stillness of the room was merely a pale imitation of the icy silence inside him.

"Who was he?" Sherlock asked so softly he thought Sherlock must have been standing in the cold stillness with him. But Sherlock never got that cold, that still.

Blinking, he dismissed the memory, met Sherlock's gaze with the slightest shrug. "Does it matter?"

 

 

End


End file.
